dry and blown like dust since we were young
by black-ostias
Summary: tumblr ficlets for our marvelous ot3, mostly based around this universe: s/10337726/1/our-bodies-twist-like-shoelaces-and-we-never-came-untied but canon too.
1. golden

**lazy wakings-up domesticity.**

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><p>You were never one for lounging about in bed after you've woken up, even on weekends and days off. Most of the time you never got to sleep at all, always tensed for Merle trying to lay his filthy socks across your face, or your father using your head as a bull's eye for his beer cans. So a good night's rest was never in the cards for you, and you were fine with that.<p>

But in this cramped room on a mattress of two beds pushed together, with Michonne's arm heavy around your waist and Rick's gentle snores filling the silence, you've never felt more at peace in your life.

You shift as slowly as you can onto your side, hoping not to disturb Michonne, but she's just as attuned to change as you are. "Where d'you think you're going?" she murmurs, her eyes still closed but her hand firm around the shell of your hip.

"Just gotta take a leak an' check on Peanut," you tell her, squeezing her arm once in reassurance. "I'll come back."

"You better," she huffs, then promptly flops the other way to make Rick her new pillow, her head fitting into his shoulder. Rick doesn't stir at all, save for the way his hand creeps up to rest against her back.

Andre is face-down in his bed, his little socked feet peeking out from the ends of the covers. You tuck the sheets over them, and three seconds later he kicks them up again, like clockwork.

You laugh softly, never failing to be amused by your kid's antics. "Have it your way, bud," you tell him, and duck down to rub your nose against his curls. The corners of his mouth twitch up in a smile, softened by the glow of his nightlight, and your can't help the flush of pure joy you feel at that.

Michonne's hand tangles in yours when you rest it on her stomach, Rick's knuckles against your cheek, and for the first time that you can remember, you fall right back into sleep again.


	2. old&new

**operation rick in fancy panties is a go. love it so much i might write more of it.**

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><p>It's mere rote, going by the lingerie section to get to the duffel bags, but something in your face must have given you away because Michonne hooks her fingers in your belt and asks, voice pitched soft and perfectly low, "Which one do you like?"<p>

You restrain yourself from overreacting, plaster on a playful smile. "For you?"

"For _you_," she murmurs, tipping her chin to rest it on your shoulder. Her mouth is laughing, but her eyes are ripping out the breath from your lungs with every steady second.

(—because there's a big possibility that Carl was conceived when you, as a little joke, were wearing the sea-foam green bra and panties you bought Lori for your anniversary, and she kept giggling the whole time, whispering _you look hotter in this stuff than i do_ as she kissed her way up your chest—)

A dull flush creeps up your cheeks, and you stammer, "I – I don't think that's a good –"

"I know of only other person 'sides me," Michonne cuts across coolly, giving you half a cheshire cat grin, "who'd kill to see you all dolled up."

You both settle for black tight mesh panties with matching stockings, the least ridiculous of the whole lot. But you still can't help feeling nervous about it that night, until Michonne bats your sweating hands away to unbutton your jeans, a gift being unwrapped under Daryl's heavy gaze.

He actually turns a worse shade of red than the one you're wearing. "Wow," he says, over and over like his chest is caving in. Michonne laughs, steps behind you to scatter kisses down your neck, wrap arms around your waist. You're utterly grateful for the support, because by the time Daryl gets to his knees and slides his mouth over the soft fabric, you can barely stand at all.


	3. change

**michonne and daryl teaming up to get rid of the animal growing on rick's face. this is the only way it should happen, yo.**

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><p>The knife slides up Rick's cheek, and he makes a soft sound, lips parting the slightest bit but he doesn't move. You smile at Daryl's similar glazed-on expression over Rick's shoulder, your fingers following the pale skin left behind. "Tip his head back," you tell Daryl, and he shifts, jostling Rick momentarily from his lap, fists a hand in Rick's curls to bare Rick's throat, his hummingbird pulse. Rick glues his back to Daryl's chest with a strained laugh.<p>

"You two are gonna kill me."

"Poor choice o' words," Daryl rumbles, his other hand securing Rick's hip, and he smirks at you wiping the foam from the blade with a towel.

You laugh and step between their legs again, Rick's hinged over Daryl's, both their shoes scuffing the dust on the long-unused bathroom floor. "Of the three of us, which one actually relies on a sharp object the most, and is even pretty good at it?" you remind them.

Rick huffs, smiling as you touch the side of his neck again, angling your aim. "It's Daryl's knife."

"I ain't ever used it like this, though," Daryl says, the bottom dropping out of his words, lips against Rick's ear and the poor boy shudders, grip going white-knuckled on Daryl's knees.

"Don't tease him or I'll nick an artery," you say, playfully scolding, and they stay still long enough for you to clear Rick's jaw, his chin, the beginnings of his throat. This time your lips brush against the newly exposed skin, breathing out delicately, enough for Rick to bite his lower lip raw, for Daryl to mutter curses, and all the filthy things he's going to do to the two of you once this is done.

You finally (finally!) set Daryl's knife aside and touch your fingertips to Rick's mouth. He breathes out against them, hot and damp and wanton, and you're now restless enough to kiss him, his cheek smooth against yours. Tinges of shaving cream are bitter between the two of you, but it hardly matters.

Rick blinks at you shyly once you part, made decades younger by his beardless face and by the uncharacteristic action, and Daryl loves it more than you do, if such a thing were possible.

"As pretty as the day we met," he croons, and you snicker when Rick both punches and kisses him in the same breath, all your troubles washed away, even if it's just for a little while.


	4. change v20

**in response to a tumblr prompt ( post/99658432841/but-what-if-michonne-is-the-first-one-to-see-clean) that i refuse to live down.**

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><p>Rick is a changed man without the beard, made less careworn without the grey to frame his jaw, and his smile is more visible when he pads around Alexandria's streets, nodding politely to the ladies giggling behind their hands, to the kids kicking around a soccer ball and yelling <em>hi sheriff<em>.

Nowadays the only thing that gives him cause to fret is Daryl.

He's becomes abruptly terse with both Rick and Michonne, constantly finding excuses not to be left alone with either of them, much less when they're together. It's a maddening mystery, since their group is too closely-knit, too intimate to hold grudges or guard secrets, not unless it's _—_

And of course it's Michonne who figures it out, who gets them both to corner Daryl in their communal house when everyone else has gone. It's mesmerizing, watching Michonne lean into Daryl with her fingers curling soft around the back of his neck, rendering him frozen stiff as she says, like she's inquiring about the weather, "Are you jealous of Rick or are you jealous of me?"

Daryl doesn't answer, can't seem to, not when the man in question is standing just beside them, and Rick involuntarily tightens his hand on Michonne's hip when Daryl glances at him with a quietly intense hunger, the same bubbling mixture in Rick's on chest.

"Or maybe you don't want to choose_," _Michonne decides, and there's no disguising how Daryl goes red to the tips of his ears, stammering and trying to withdraw and so Rick goes in for the kill:

"Neither do we."

Rick kisses him then, elated at the sensation of Daryl's beard scraping the smoothness of his cheeks, and Daryl makes an odd choked sound, the chasteness of the initial press dissolving into a nipping, _desperate_ mess, and Michonne is smirking once daryl pulls away only to kiss her next, fumbling and overwhelmed and he groans against her collarbone, "i don't know how this goes."

_"_We'll figure it out," Rick murmurs into his ear, gluing himself to Daryl's back and in turn pressing him more into Michonne's body. They're crowded together in an empty hallway and Daryl's neck is newly clean under Rick's teeth, Michonne's mouth fallen open and cursing and Daryl is laughing and —

They fall into place. Finally.


	5. bright

**kaledanvers on tumblr asked for h/c. after the midseason finale's catastrophe, this thing was mandatory.**

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><p>Daryl can't stand it: the pity in Ford's eyes, the broken slump of Carol's shoulders, the stunned shape of Carl's mouth, the. The unadulterated pain in Maggie's smothered sobs late in the night, and regret piles up like rotting wood in his mind, shuttering away the dawn.<p>

This is all his fault. All of it.

Michonne and Rick refuse to believe otherwise, no matter how much he tries to tell them. Daryl's gone so far as to call Michonne a bitch, and take a wild swing at Rick, but they still won't leave him alone.

i don't deserve you, he wants to scream at them. and you don't deserve a piece of shit like me.

But a week after Grady, the sun long gone and Daryl huddled away from the main campfire, Rick comes up to him with Judith in his arms, a failsafe against any potential violence. Michonne follows not much later, neither of them bothering for subtlety, just pressing against him like it's their place. Daryl tries to be pissed but his glare has gone tepid on the both of them; they've built up a resistance to his defensive barbs and rough edges (and it shouldn't be this way, god it shouldn't be, everyone he's ever loved for dies at his hands in the end).

"The hell d'you want," he says, a little too loud, and a slow blink is Michonne's first response, then, "Judith's missed you. We all miss you."

Rick slips his fingers through Daryl's hair, snagging and soothing, and Daryl's body betrays him, slumps further into the conditioned touch. "Don't disappear on us," Rick sighs. "None of this was your fault. Maggie knows that, we all know that. Except you."

"Ain't nothin you can say that's gonna change the fact that it's my fuckin fault," Daryl reminds them, brittle and cutting. "So y'might as well stop."

"That's not the point," Michonne says, her voice a sharp hiss, and Daryl stares at her, feeling illogically hurt. She sighs and laces her hand with his. "You can't save everyone. That's the way things are. It doesn't make you any less of a good man."

Daryl exhales, wanting to cut her off, but she continues, "And it doesn't matter if you deserve us- you do, okay, of course you do- but it doesn't matter because we're here to stay." She smiles, sad and fond, and parrots him, "Nothing you can say's gonna change that."

There are no words, after that. There's no need for them anymore. Judith squirms, burbling demands to be carried, and Daryl props her on his lap. Rick settles his head against Daryl's shoulder, Michonne running a feather-light nail across the pads of Judith's feet to make her laugh.

This is forgiveness like he's never witnessed it before, and for once the tears rising to Daryl's eyes have nothing to do with grief.


	6. slices

**little **unrelated **thoughts, in no particular chronological order.**

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><p>Michonne has painted toenails, a nice bright red. It wasn't her idea but Daryl's, who wanted to do something nice for her. Rick tried a hand in painting them but his strokes weren't as neat as Daryl's. Her nails ended up being unevenly done but Michonne appreciates their efforts anyway.<p>

(just like she appreciates Rick gently blowing on the nails so they'd dry, his breath a touch too hot)

(just like she appreciates Daryl kissing his way up her calf, the inside of her thigh, the curve of her hip)

(and after all and everything, when Daryl got up to pull on his pants and cursed when he realized that Michonne's nails had been ruined by their enthusiastic…_activities_, she just buried her face in Rick's chest to smother her laughter, and that, she loves the most)

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><p>For all that Rick is no shrinking violet when it comes to sex, he's just not sure of what to do about this, this gnawing ache inside him for two people at once. Because let's be honest, Lori's probably the only one in his life he's ever been with, and all of a sudden he finds his heart racing whenever Michonne smiles at him or whenever Daryl's lips purse around his cigarette and —<p>

And they both notice, how could they _not_, and they both want to drag it out that much longer if only to see more of the helpless flush on Rick's face whenever the three of them are stuck in one place together. But see, Michonne, Daryl, they're all about seeing chances and taking them, because there's no room for what-ifs in a world like this

(and so witness Daryl on his knees with his mouth on Rick's stomach and Michonne showing Rick how to work his fingers inside himself so they can both fuck him and Rick can't speak anymore, he knows nothing but their names and please, _please please please_—)

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><p>Daryl and Rick do rock-paper-scissors to determine who gets to go down on Michonne first, and Michonne just laughs at them through her fingers. More often than not, Rick plays dirty by murmuring <em>you can open me up while i do it<em> and then it's a different kind of race completely, on who makes who come first.

(more often than not, they're a connected circuit, an open flame with their desire blending and flowing through each other without barriers; they're at their most beautiful in their togetherness)

(more often than not, Daryl and Rick both go down on Michonne at the same time, and that's beautiful too; Daryl ends up slipping his tongue into Rick's mouth rather than inside her, but she doesn't care)

(what matters is that they're together. always.)

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><p>After they get to the church, Carl is cuddling Judith on his lap when Daryl shuffles towards him and asks haltingly, "Can I hold her?"<p>

Carl looks so surprised by the question, tells him, "you don't have to ask that," hands her over with such a simple yet deeply profound act of trust and love. And Rick watches the whole thing with his heart in his throat because Daryl is kissing his baby's head and cooing _hey lil asskicker, we've been missing you_ (and looking over at Rick with a painfully shy half-smile).

And Michonne digs her fingers into Rick's hip and says, all smug and contented, "Told you he wants you. So when are we taking him to bed?"

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><p>Because Rick looks at Daryl like he's the moon, the ground under his feet, his anchor to the good still left in him, and at Michonne like she's the sun, the last living flame on the horizon, everything he'll ever want to aspire to and be good for. Rick may be the leader but he'd be lost without these two, his world would have been bleak and airless without them, all three of them need each other.<p>

(God, let them keep each other.)

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><p>Imagine a night where there's moonlight enough for one to see Michonne and Rick, tucked in a secluded corner and taking all pleasure where pleasure is due, and Daryl is the helpless voyeur, the heel of his hand against his pants and biting his lip bloody trying to keep the sounds in, and Michonne stills completely above Rick and hums into his ear, "He's watching us, you know."<p>

And Rick just blows out a breathless laugh, hands clawing at Michonne's hips: "We gotta make it good for him, then. Ask him to join us next time."


End file.
